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Dealing With Slobo's Gang

Updated Oct. 24, 2000 12:01 a.m. ET

T hroughout the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia Western leaders insisted that their quarrel was with Slobodan Milosevic, not with the Serbian people. This was a repeat of the message sent to the Iraqis about Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War. Except that in 1990 everyone believed it; it was clear that Iraqis, even soldiers, had been mostly pawns in Saddam's hands. With the Balkans, that line is blurred. A significant number of Serbs had been either willing executioners or tacit supporters in waves of ethnic cleansing.